This competition needs no introduction. For the past month the community has been voting for their favorite mods. The votes were cast and the results are in. There are a few surprize packets but all in all, the results reflect the 2005 mod making year.

Equal 15. Alien Swarm

Alien Swarm is an overhead view tactical squad-based shooter for UT2K4. Set in the the distant future, players take the role of a Commander in the Interstellar Armed Forces. They must guide their squad of marines through Swarm infested colonies, overrun bases and outposts, to achieve a variety of objectives. Featuring Assault Rifles, Heat Tracking Guns, Sentry Guns, Flamethrowers and more. Just play the co-op mode, it is unbelievably fun - nuff said.

Equal 15. AWP (A week in paradise)

Apocalypse Weekend 7-Day Game takes the best elements of both Postal 2 and Apocalypse Weekend, throws in a bunch more weapons, mixes in a touch more variety to the NPC's, and allows you to go absolutely friggin' nuts. While not a complete overhaul by any means, 7-Day Game expands on the original universe just enough to keep players grounded in a familiar universe while opening up a wealth of additional options to play around with.

And did I mention the Katana?

Man, is that thing fun....

14. Forgotten Hope

Most mods struggle to introduce a few new guns, models, maps etc... This isn't surprising either, to add one model you have to make it, skin it, add sounds, sprites, animate it and then code it in..... christ almighty!! Forgotten Hope hasn't just added a few toys to play with either, they've added __250__ new things from guns to tanks to planes to people. That is one hell of an effort and this is one hell of a mod. Hats off to this team for a fantastic job. Play IT.

13. SourceForts

Every bloke wants to be king of the hill, king of the castle, king of the keg - who knows we just want to be kings! What beats a castle? A whole damn fort does that’s what! Even better is the little twist this mod introduces to the world of capture the flag ball gameplay. In Sourceforts you get to build your own fort / barricades / steps, whatever you want to make the life of your opposition as difficult as possible. Teamplay mayhem, love it!

12. Mistake Of Pythagoras

Half-Life 2 mods are a dime a dozen, but few of them that have been released so far actually reach out and try something new and innovative. Enter Mistake of Pythagoras, the weirdest mod I've played in quite some time. Many mods ask you to fight off waves of zombies, but how many of them make you look up into the sky to see if a giant stone number is going to fall on you?

Whether you are dodging the numbers, running from giant space ships tearing the city apart, solving physics puzzles, or trying to navigate a series of alien environments that are both familiar and alien at the same time, Mistake of Pythagoras is consistently original and new from beginning to end, something few authors can claim for themselves.

11. MINERVA

One part Marathon and three parts Half-Life 2, MINERVA is a breath of fresh air in the modding scene, doing in single maps what few teams can do in twenty.

Offering an entire island's worth of adventure, MINERVA's first episode, Metastasis, is engaging both through its simplistic presentation and its incredible design. While some of this can be attributed to Valve and their existing artwork, it can't be denied that the map looks phenomenal, just asking you to go out of your way and search through every forgotten corridor to see if you have been missing something. Subtle gameplay tweaks and clever design brings out the best of the Combine AI and sets the player up for some incredibly tense moments; and even better is the freedom to roam across the whole island when you are nearly done, seeing the after-effects of your assault still lying around on the open beach.

Only the first part of a growing series, MINERVA is not to be missed by Half-Life 2 fans, or anyone else for that matter. We love it, and so do you!

10. Natural Selection

Natural Selection is a highly awarded and extremely well played FPS built upon the Half-Life engine. Playing with two teams, the Marines and the Aliens. You will soon learn your way around the unique mouse driven user-interface communicating with team mates and morphing into other forms if an Alien. NS also uses a 2D map for the 'commander' of the Marines, so the team can interactively build resource gathering points and other structures to fortify their base.

9. Ashes of Apocalypse

The year is 2092, Earth lays in ruin. Two groups of people battle to survive in the wasteland, and both are determined to wipe each other out. From the creator of Sea of Destiny comes an uncensored and gritty post nuclear role-playing game. Take part in the brutal war of the barrier alliance against the people of the wasteland. Travel through what remains of the old world and survive against the harsh unforgiving world of Ashes of Apocalypse...welcome to the post nuclear playground.

Ashes of Apocalypse is a total conversion for Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind. AoA is set in a post nuclear world of freedom. It offers the player the choice of what to do, when, and where. There are no limits except the one to survive. If you want a constantly changing challenge, this ever expanding mod is for you.

8. International Online Soccer

With a little elbow grease and determination, I reckon I could make a plane with tooth picks and string, MacGyver style. That doesn't mean I do - i'm lazy but that doesn't mean it is impossible.

This is exactly what the International Online Soccer team have done. They've tackled conventional wisdom (i.e. Half-Life games involve shooting other people) and mixed it up until they are shooting soccer balls at goals. And they've done a damn fine job of it too. IOS really is a decent package - and their multiplayer mode is awesome fun and bound to keep the hordes of soccer fans busy.

7. 21st Century Warfare

If you are a fan of the epics (you know long movies like: Lord of the Rings, King Kong, Saving Private Ryan) and your ass does not go numb when you sit in one spot for half a day then you'll love this mod.

21st Century Warfare purpose is purely to serve MASSIVE tournaments. It promotes fair gameplay, putting the outcome of the battle in the player’s hands, not in the equipment. We play the game as it was meant to be played, with real command structure and 12 hour long battles every weekend.

6. Last Man Standing Coop

I can't speak for everyone, but who had the chance to play Doom II back in the 90's when multiplayer 3D gaming was just starting out? I did and nothing tops some of the epic 1v1, 600frag battles that took place on E1M1. The combination of Double Barrel Shotgun, Plasma, Rocket and of course BFG guns has to be one of the nastiest assemblies of weapons yet.

You can't top that but Last Man Standing certainly comes close. Besides LMS is a co-op mod. So for all the sissy's out there like me, it’s great to get a few mates together when playing Doom in the dark. Nothing beats letting your mate run into a room full of bigass angry bad guys and watching him/her get absolutely cained. Haha!

5. Sven Coop

What the hell is Sven Coop still doing here? When you've made something good you last for a while - like the latest pop hit from an American Idol winner. When you are great, people enjoy hearing your song 20 years later - long live the eighties!!! Beyond that, you are someone like the fat man (Elvis), or a band like the Beatles. People keep talking about "those days" and the "good times".

Now Sven-Coop isn't quite at this point, but damn does this mod have an impressive array of fans who swear by its replayability and no doubt will still do so, 10 years down the track. Keep it up, besides what beats covering your mates with some friendly fire, drawing the bad guy’s away co-op style?

4. Point Of Existence Mod

I hate to state the obvious, but this mod looks seriously sweet - just check out their gallery. Any mod which goes to such a level of detail isn't about to disappoint, in fact Point of Existence has a storyline and gameplay to match its visuals. Battlefield Vietnam is a great game and this mod only makes it better.

Its war, get involved.

3. Dystopia

Let's be honest - the Mod DB crew loves Dystopia and haven't shy'd away from pimping their *awesomeness*. We've met the creators, we've argued ideas over a beer or 10 and blown each other to bits playing this game.

Why have we done all this? Because we haven't just played the demo / trailer / teaser, we've played the real deal, the real McCoy and we liked what we saw. For so long we have been preaching uniqueness and the importance of making a mod that tries to do things differently, and evidently the community agree with us here. Dystopia, like all other top mods, listened to our pleas and have pumped out some awesome stuff and included some seriously cool, epileptic fit inducing ideas in their mod. It is futuristic team-based warfare at its best!

2. Earths Special Forces

Question: What is scarier than a 10,000 pound gorilla named Kong tearing up the streets of New York?Answer: 10,000 Dragonball Z fans

They certainly are a force not to be reckoned with. They attack in packs, and vote in numbers which is why Earths Special Forces has made it since Mod of the Year started in 2002. Now I agree in part that perhaps they shouldn't be here, but well over 2,000 people disagree with me - so who am I to argue?

Earth's Special Forces (ESF) is a fast paced, 3rd person fighter based on the hit anime, Dragonball Z. Select your favorite character and fly, power up, transform, melee, and beam your enemies into pulp. Each character is given signature moves and abilities to compliment different style of play, some are stronger in hand to hand combat, others are better with energy attacks. Play in three different game modes, deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the dragonballs. There is a learning curve so newbie’s beware. This is not your normal Half-life mod.

1. Garrys Mod

It will come as a surprise to some of you (and no surprise at all to others) that Garry's Mod has won the 2005 Mod of the Year award. Beginning small and rapidly working its way up, Garry's Mod isn't a game as much as a sandbox where you can make one. If you don't fancy a whole game you could always pose some characters and props to make a picture (or perhaps an entire comic), build a giant robot, spawn hundreds of monsters and have an enormous scrap, or anything else you can come up with.

Garry's Mod is Valve's poster child for their development community and among the best-known mods ever made, and with good reason. With its creativity, flexibility, innovation and service to all of modkind, we are proud to announce that, at two times the number of votes of its nearest competitor, Garry's Mod the 2005 ModDB Mod of the Year!

Congratulations to everyone who won. I'm really suprised about AW7 winning a mod of the year award seeing as it was only out for about 5 days before the end of the year, and alot of people don't like Postal. Anyway... Thanks to everyone that voted!

Righto, I'm fine with the BMS Team , i'm fine with BMS and where it is.

I think the BMS team is quite talented , maybe the best mod team there is but i've talked to a few in the team and they say the same thing about Kal , i just stated my point... Everyone has an opioion... YOu guys love him , i think he dosnt deserve the attention hes got.

Said and said, i didnt want to start a war or anything BLue Wolf so back down.
*bark bark*

I think everyone should stop arguing over Garrys Mod and get on with other discussions. Garrys Mod is controversial. He took code from a developer of JB mod who gave it to him, and when JB mod said it was their code, Garry said he didn't know and kept the code in Garrys Mod. Garry and JB started the same way, except JB mode went down due to the massive advertising Garry had going out.

Either way, it has such a huge community that it was going to win regardless so congrats to Garry for his win.

Folks, stop talking about it. Garrys Mod is Garrys Mod, simple. If you want to complain about it winning, head over to the Dystopia forums where they seem pretty choked about.

"Didn't Garry (from Garry's mod) steal from other mods and then threaten to sue them?"

Maybe not, but the latest versions of Garry's mod are just scripted 'games' written by OTHER PEOPLE thrown in and called 'Content'. I mean, that'd be like Dystopia decompiling CounterStrike and putting it in as a 'minigame' and calling it original content.

Big congratulations out to the top mods and the top upcoming. It feel in line somewhere in the region I expected, but Dystopia beat my fourth I estimated for them, so great job Teddy and the team. Garry's Mod, hands down, was going to win. Its massive success has stretched straight across the board in terms of playability and replayability: both of which are critical factors in many popular mods. A congrats goes out to Garry Newman: another medal to add to his collection (or which some will call his ego).

The Top Genre, again I agree with most of them. The Tetris was weird, but come on now folks: for a community which registered Red Orchestra as a Sports Mod, we needed some more irrational, uncomprehendable and outrageous actions to keep it normal for ModDB. Once again, congrats. A big big congrats goes out to Insurgency and Fortress Forever, the two other Half-Life 2 mods that made it into the Best Upcoming lineup. I was personally betting that Insurgency would have taken Best Mod, beating us out, but when they scored third I was shocked.

Anyways, a great run around this time and I'm pumped we got into the Best Upcoming.

I was expecting you guys to take it because of the beta-testing thing you guys put out while the voting was on. I was pumped nonetheless and congrats Argyll, I hope to see a release from you guys soon.

"Maybe not, but the latest versions of Garry's mod are just scripted 'games' written by OTHER PEOPLE thrown in and called 'Content'. I mean, that'd be like Dystopia decompiling CounterStrike and putting it in as a 'minigame' and calling it original content."

No, it'd be like Dystopia putting maps in there that Teddy hasn't created and calling it original content. Oh wait that's how it works.

GMod was designed so people could add their scripted gamemodes and weapons in - it wasn't an accident.

Heh, kind of a surprise that you should pick a doom3 mod for an award, not that I mind, I'm completely utterly proud and appreciate it a lot. And the best story category would be our mods strong point. God knows we've been trying to make the story unforgettable. Year in writing and we're still lacking some stuff!

I tested gmod. And honestly its not a mod. As i understod it, it just gives you admin comands over source engine. Its pretty much something to goof off with for 30-60 minutes and than never again. I admit its a nice idea and it deserves a placing on the avards but no way its a mod of the year.

Like the feature says, Gmod has spawned so many forms of entertainment, It doesn't matter how short-lived it is for each person, the fact of the matter is that so many people have tried it out and played around with the Source engine. Many of these people have started thinking about what could be fun gameplay and have started making their own content for Gmod or otherwise. Garry's mod is a household name in the modding community and has achieved this accolade because of the fact that it has no set gameplay. Essentially its a mod that lets you make your own game, it is to computer games what lego was to toys. Besides, in this part of the competition it's the votes that count and Gmod beat its nearest competitor by almost 2:1! All the other mods had the same conditions for winning, Gmod simply has the biggest fanbase, how can you argue with that?

Ok, maybe I'm a bit behind on my info but I never heard the part of the story where garry thretend to sue. People did however claim that garry stole his matirials from JB mod. Though JB did come first, all he truly did was take some matirials valve themselfs left in and expanding on them.

I never used any code from JBMod. I don't know why people think I did. I really did not.

I mean think about it - what in GMod could use JBMod's code? The physgun is included with the SDK.

Also - I never advertised GMod. I really didn't. I don't have a awesome "promoter" or whatever some mod teams have (I call them "hangers on"). GMod got promoted by people because they liked it - not because I sent everyone an email asking them to pimp it. The most I ever did was send an email to hl2net/hlf/moddb/phl when I released a big update - but every mod should be doing that anyway. I'd also like you to note that on the promotional front GMod has NEVER been mentioned in one of Valve's "weekly updates" - a lot of the released mods have - so if it was all about promotion they should have the lead there.

I really don't get the "It's not a mod" statement. If it wasn't a mod you'd just be playing Half-Life 2.

I didnt think you deserved mod of the year but after seeing the votes you got and I releasized that out of all the mods in 2005 your mod allows you to do the most in one mod so i went out and asked 10 people if they thought the same if they voted for you. 8 said you can do the most in only one mod and that was GMOD and the other 2 were all about the mod they worked on. My point is I do think you deserve the award!

I didnt think you deserved mod of the year but after seeing the votes you got and I realized that out of all the mods in 2005 your mod allows you to do the most in one mod so i went out and asked 10 people if they thought the same if they voted for you. 8 said you can do the most in only one mod and that was GMOD and the other 2 were all about the mod they worked on. Not everyone is going to be happy with mod awards from moddb.com or if it was from modawards.com. Anyways my point is I do think you deserve the award!